


Rakuen

by Shewantsthejensen



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Original Character Death(s), Original Characters - Freeform, Original Fiction, Original Slash, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Prequel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-21 03:02:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2452352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shewantsthejensen/pseuds/Shewantsthejensen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Everyone is alone. Everyone is empty."</p><p>It hadn't always felt that way. There was light once. And life. And paradise not too far away. But as the abyss stares into Shogo Makishima he must decide whether to stare back into the abyss or allow it to consume him. Not all men are born evil. </p><p>Some of them are made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Birth

He wakes to laughter.

                The kind of laughter that can bring a dying man back from the brink of death. Lighthearted and airy. Breathtaking in every way, shape and form. He hasn’t heard that laughter in a long time. Laughter has been absent in Sho’s household for a long time. For almost far too long. Laughter manages to pull him out from beneath the stained duvet on top of the couch, urges him to descend the staircase.

                The laughter continues his entire way downstairs.

                The electricity is out again. Probably because Daddy is yet to properly pay for the bill. This is the fourth time in the past six months. But Sho doesn’t mind it. He’s lived most of his life in darkness anyhow. The dark doesn’t frighten him. After all, it’s easier to hide from the monsters in the dark.

Lightning strikes outside, illuminating the downstairs and lower portion of the staircase. For a split second there are shadows cast along the walls. Silhouettes of Mommy and Daddy who are somewhere in the kitchen.

                Everything is becoming louder. The source of the laughter must be Mommy whose head is thrown back, the shrill sound escaping from between her chapped lips. He can see her as he creeps down another step, peering around the bannister. He’s small for his age. Mommy doesn’t seem to notice him. He wonders if it’s the medicine again. She left yesterday to go get more.

                He hasn’t heard Mommy laugh in a long time too. It’s frightening almost, to hear Mommy’s beautiful laughter. She used to laugh when he was littler. When she had taken her medicine and everything he did was funny.

                “You’ll see, Sho! You’re gonna be momma’s little comedian one day,” she would say after her laughter was on the verge of becoming sobs. She would wipe tears from her eyes and smile just a little bit wider than normal and then she would go to sleep until morning. He always hated the mornings. That’s when Mommy wasn’t always as nice.

                What was so good about becoming a comedian anyways? He never really understood. He always thought that it might be better to become an officer for the WPCB or maybe to program technology. Daddy’s daddy used to do that. But whenever he mentions it, Daddy shouts and that’s when he scurries into the dark, waiting until he’s been long forgot and life can continue on as it normally does.

                Mommy’s laughter cuts off abruptly. He peers into the minimal lighting offered by the streetlamps outside. The kitchen smells _bad_. Like the rust in the basement. Coppery and sickly and it forces him to pull his shirt up over his nose. The kitchen also looks very, very messy. He remembers that a long time ago when he was littler, Mommy used to paint in the kitchen, her easel set up in the middle of the room. She would paint the bowl of rotting fruit on the counter or the sunset or the city skyline. Mommy must have started painting again.

                Everything in the kitchen is red.

                Her hands. Her clothes. The floor. The wall behind Daddy. Even Daddy is covered in the red. But it darkens at his throat, at parts of his shirt. Lightning strikes. He can see that Mommy’s holding Daddy’s razor so tightly they’re cutting her hands and with a final laugh, she drives the blade into Daddy’s abdomen. A wet sound catches in his throat. His eyes bulge out for a moment and then he slumps forward.

                Mommy wipes her hands off on the front of her dress. Her long, white hair is red now too and it takes only a moment for him to realize very quickly that that isn’t paint all over Mommy and Daddy. It’s blood. And when Mommy places the razor back down onto the counter and turns her attention to the stairway, Sho hides behind the banister. He holds his breath and remains still.

                “Sho?” Mommy calls from the kitchen, her voice suddenly soft.

                She attempts to call him three times.

                “Sho come downstairs for a minute, okay?”

                A minute later.

                “I have something for you! It’s a surprise.”

                Thirty seconds later.

                “Sho?”

                Ten.

                “SHOGO GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!”

                He doesn’t dare move a muscle.

                He can hear the floorboards creaking underneath her. Mommy’s footfalls are heavier than usual. She steps past the threshold, slowly making her way toward the staircase. He doesn’t have much time. In fact, he doesn’t have _time_ at all. He takes a small hiccup of a breath and runs. Up the stairs, minding his footing, making certain not to stumble the way Mommy does as she chases after him. He throws a glance over his shoulder and yelps at the sight of her, the sockets of her eyes hollow, blood flecked all over her porcelain skin.

                She looks like a monster.

                He continues running.

                The hallway branches off in two directions, one leading to Mommy and Daddy’s room, the other to the attic—to where Sho likes to spend his nights even though Mommy and Daddy took the liberty of setting up a blanket on the floor for him. He isn’t allowed to sleep on the bed. He learnt that the hard way three years ago and there’s still a scar on his right hip from the event. On a whim Sho decides that he wants to take his chances with the attic. That’s _his_ home. He knows it better than Mommy or Daddy or anyone does.

                He reaches the attic fast enough to see Mommy has returned downstairs. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t care because exactly fifteen seconds later she’s coming back up, something glinting silver in her hand. He counts the amount of footfalls it takes for him to reach the attic (twenty). It takes seven breaths for him to squeeze his way underneath the faulty bit of floorboard. One second for him to see Mommy enter the attic dressed solely in his father’s blood.

                There’s loud noises outside, close to the house. Sho doesn’t know if he wants to attempt to attract attention in order to save himself or if he wants to hide here and wait and see if Mommy will give up. She’s always liked hide and seek. She’s always won too.

                “Sho…” she hums his name softly.

                He bites down on his lip hard enough to coat his tongue with blood. He hates the taste. He forces himself to endure.

                “I know you’re hiding, Sho…” Mommy continues. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

                But he won’t come out. As long as there’s air in his lungs and thoughts in his head he won’t run. The noises outside are louder. If he strains hard enough he can hear people’s voices outside shouting at each other, barking orders while a mechanic voice instructs the neighbors to remain calm.

                “This is a message from the Public Safety Bureau. We urge you to remain indoors until otherwise instructed. Please remain calm. This is a message from the Public Safety Bureau…” the voice chirps before repeating over and over again.

                Beyond that a man shouts, “We’ve got one Renegade in there. Looks like a couple of Dosers have been keeping—“

                “Dosers, sir?”

                “Regular citizens like you and me who take their prescriptions and like to trade ‘em with each other. See what gets them a high and what doesn’t. Looks like we’ve gotta pair of ‘em hiding inside. Scanners picked up a high Psycho-pass reading but they both escaped before they could receive treatment…”

                And then the words trail off.

                Mommy walks to the far end of the attic. She throws the duvet off the couch. Tsubaki—Sho’s only stuffy, a green frog—goes soaring through the air with it. Mommy’s attention turns to Tsubaki. She takes two steps toward the toy, pressing the ball of her foot deep into its head. One of Tsubaki’s eyes pokes out at an odd angle. A pang of hurt fills Sho’s chest.

                Downstairs someone bangs on the door.

                The house shakes at its foundation.

                “…Multiple readings…” Someone outside shouts.

                “…Thought there were only two of ‘em in here?”

                “Oh no,” Mommy whispers just as the downstairs door is thrown open. Sho can hear it slam into the wall. Hear the sound of at least three different people run into the house. Someone is coming up the stairs—he can tell by the way the floor groans beneath them. Mommy has gone still. She steps away from Tsubaki.

                Sho lets out the smallest of whimpers.

                Mommy doesn’t even seem to care.

                “You made a real mess of things down there,” a man says from the doorway but Sho can’t see him. All he can see is Mommy whose eyes are wide. Her lips part but she has nothing to say.

                “And would you look at that! Crime coefficient over three-hundred. That’s quite the feat, Miss Makishima.” Something mechanical clicks into place where Sho can’t see it. He braces himself.

                “M-my boy…” Mommy says.

                “Boy?”

                “Don’t hurt him.”

                “Sure thing, Missy,” the man says. “Best close your eyes.”

                And that’s when Sho sees the light. Almost blue in color and _blinding_. The light goes directly toward Mommy—cuts through her—and that’s when he sees that Mommy isn’t there anymore. What’s left of her is blood. More of it. Lots of it. Bits of bone and chunks of meat left scattered along the attic. A stream of scarlet flows steadily down between the floorboards. And _drop…drop…drop_ tap Sho’s forehead.

                He struggles beneath the floorboard. Pressing up on it but it won’t even budge. He’s trapped. His breathing speeds up. His heartbeat becomes elevated.

                “Let me out!” Sho cries over and over again until the man hears him and comes running, peeling back the floorboard like it’s nothing. Sho isn’t sure if he wants to hug the brunette man or throw up all over him. At the sight of something grey scattered around the floor alongside bits of ivory hair, he does both.

                The man doesn’t seem to mind it.

                The man just holds him until the tears come.

                “A miracle,” someone whispers when the man carries him out of the building and toward one of the nearby vehicles.

                “Gonna need therapy,” someone else whispers. “Don’t know how his coefficient is only eighty-seven.”

                None of it matters. In the middle of the night, Sho takes in gulps of fresh air. The rain falls over his face, washing away the steady build-up of grime that’s coated his flesh over the years. His stomach grumbles and someone promises to get him food at their earliest convenience.

                For the very first time, Sho feels safe.


	2. Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "People no longer have need of others. "

The Rehab Centre is in pristine condition. The facility’s walls are clean, metallic and painted a calming eggshell white. The tile flooring is marble, polished so well that Sho can see his reflection in it. The windows flicker every now and then but depending on his mood they can change from viewing a desert halfway across the world to a view of the city skyline. A woman sits at the end of the room wearing a pressed ivory pantsuit, typing rapidly on her keyboard behind a desk (both the same shade of white). Sho makes no comment toward the cleanliness of the facility or the fact that the entire building reminds him of midwinter.

                He isn’t hungry anymore. Thankfully. He almost feels guilty about it.  At the Rehab Centre he was offered everything: Domburi; soba; gyoza; udon… The list went on and on and by the end of it, Sho’s stomach had doubled in size and he even found the will to laugh over it. His glee only lasted a moment. Mommy’s ringing laughter filled his mind and suddenly, he didn’t want to laugh anymore. He didn’t want to laugh ever again.

                The woman sitting behind the desk takes a pause. She peers up from behind her ovular glasses and narrows her eyes slightly. Sho isn’t sure why. Is it at him? Did he do something wrong? He makes his way behind the couch and remains there, wrapping his arms around himself, waiting for her to look away. She’s been keeping her eye on him for hours now.

                Sho gets a bit uncomfortable at the fact that she was the one to greet him at the doors to the Rehab Centre after the PCB dropped him off inside and one of the Inspectors went to file the necessary paperwork. As far as Sho is concerned he is now a child of Sybil and will remain as such until he is eighteen. The woman at the front desk—Misaki as her nametag reads—took him into the decontamination chamber. She stripped him down and cleaned him up and it had all seemed very normal to her. She didn’t bat an eyelash. Didn’t even look _at_ _him._

                She helped him dress. Helped him eat. And now she’s busy working while he waits for what’s next. Maybe he’ll see the Inspector again. Or maybe something else will happen. Maybe he’ll get to leave.

                He wouldn’t mind going outside again.

                “You don’t need to hide,” Misaki tells him with a voice that is scratchier than he’d prefer. “You’re safe now. The Bureau—“

                “Where’s that man?” Sho asks.

                “What man?”

                “The man who saved me. That man. Where is he?” he says.

                Misaki hesitates. “On business. And you shouldn’t be so worried. Please, come out. I’m sure you have a lovely smile.”

                And it takes him a few minutes but Sho musters the courage to peek his head out from over the couch, to get up onto his feet and climb over. Misaki watches him with a dull look in her eye. Her words may be kind but she looks nothing like it. She turns her attention back to the computer screen, mumbling something like ‘There you go kid,’ while doing so. This is new. Sho waits for her to trick him. To get up and decide that he’s done something wrong. That’s how it’s always been.

                He begins to count the tiles on the floor. One… two… three…

                Misaki’s long nails tapping the keyboard. Four… five… six…

                His own shallow breaths. Seven...

                “You can go to the Interaction Hall if you want,” Misaki’s words fill the silence.  

                Sho glances in her direction.

                “Interaction Hall?” he echoes.

                “Don’t act like you haven’t spoken a word in your life. The Interaction Hall. You go. You interact with other people your own age. I can let you go for a minute or so and then you need to come back. Isn’t good to let the Post-T’s like you stay out for long. Raises the Hall’s stress levels and we don’t want that right?” She blinks at him.

                He nods his head.

                “I’ll walk you there,” and just like that Misaki pushes away from the desk. She picks a pencil out of the silver cup on the desk and wraps her hair around it. Transfixed, Sho watches as she pins her hair into place with it and heads toward the double-sided doors. Misaki holds it open for him. Sho hurries after her, worried that one wrong movement might put him in a position he doesn’t really desire.

                “When the Rehabilitation Centre was first built it was under Sybil’s law. No one had any real say in what occurred here but… we slowly managed to gain some leverage back. A psycho-pass may only well be evaluated by Sybil but only a real person can alter it. Change it from being a reading that’ll end a life to one that can return one. That’s the beauty of this facility. We’re almost a step above our newfound God,” Misaki says as they pass a room with walls made up entirely of glass. A man sits in the middle. His eyes shut. A string piercing through his lips, sealing them shut in a grotesque manner.

                Sho shudders and forces himself to look away. “That’s Kyo. He’s trouble.”

                “Looks like it,” Sho hears himself say.

                Kyo’s eyes burst open. Landing on Sho. He bursts up and across the cell, pressing his palms into the glass, his lips moving viciously. Words trapped in his throat, leaving the remnants of words inside his mouth. Sho jumps back. Misaki’s warm hand on his back pushes him forward, toward the set of doors ahead.

                “This is the Interaction Hall,” she says and pushes the doors open. The hall isn’t at all what Sho had imagined. The word hall makes him think of the hallway that forked in two different directions back home. The word hall makes him think of fear and uncertainty and being trapped for all of his life.

                This is no hall.

                The Interaction Hall leads outside, into a field that goes on and on forever. Or at least, until it reaches one of the four surrounding walls that keep in enclosed. Sho takes a step outside. His feet are on grass. _Grass_. There is no ceiling. He’s outside in broad daylight. And it’s _warm_ outside. A silent comfort. With a grin, Sho looks up at Misaki.

                He’s surprised by the smug look on her pointed face.

                “Go.”

                She doesn’t have to tell him twice.

                Sho falls into a run. There’s so much out here. A set of swings in the distance that he wouldn’t mind trying. A series of benches near flowers and trees and there are so many other people too. An elderly man sits on one of the benches making small talk with a teenage boy. A pair of kids chase each other around a small hill. All Sho can see are those mighty swings. Their seats bright red, chains rusted but in a way that’s aesthetically appealing, both of them waiting for someone to jump on—

                And there’s a girl who approaches. Taking one of the chains in her hand. She rattles it and narrows her eyes. She can’t be much older than Sho. Her hair is a deep shade of black and reaches her collarbones. Her eyes are bright blue and find his in an instant. A series of baby fat surrounds her face but in a way that only makes her seem cuter than before. She’s small. Maybe smaller than him. When Sho raises a hand and waves at her she scowls.

                “Are you gonna use the swing?” Sho asks when he grows nearer.

                She rattles the chain. “Maybe.”

                “I’m gonna be using it too,” he says proudly.

                “You act like you haven’t seen a swing before,” she says and narrows her eyes.

                Sho doesn’t mind her hostility. He hops into the seat next to her and grips the chains so tightly they dig into his palms. The girl is watching him, cautiously so. He doesn’t blame her. Who knows what kind of company can be found inside of the Interaction Hall. He begins to push off the ground, his legs going outward and then inward and out again.

                “I haven’t,” Sho admits when he’s a good distance off the ground. But he’s seen it in a book once. Again in a magazine. He likes the idea of flight—of travelling farther than the world could ever contain him.

                “You’re weird,” the girl tells him.             

                Sho smiles. “So are you.”

                A beat.

                “I’m Makishima Shogo,” he says.

                “Natsuki Akira.”

                Natsuki Akira isn’t at all what Sho has imagined another child his age to be like. She’s rough around the edges. Her eyes pierce straight through him. She acts older than he is. Maybe she is older than he is. Girls are small, he assumes that maybe one older than he is could be equally petite. But Natsuki Akira is also brilliant somehow. In a way he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to describe. Something about her is intriguing and wills him to impress her. To go higher on the swing. To do something daring like jump off and stick the landing.

                Akira bites her lip. “You’re staring at me.”

                “You’re really pretty.”

                “I should cut off your tongue and feed it to the fish in the river,” the words are abrupt and uncalled for. A verbal slap in the face. Akira places her little hands on her even thinner hips and he can see the hem of her white shirt raise, revealing milky, young flesh and deep purple bruising. Four small circles, all curved over her hip. Fingerprints.

                “Why would you do that?”

                “That’s what Mitsu-sensei taught me to tell boys like you. That’s what she taught all the girls to say to keep the perverts away,” Akira stands taller.

                Sho furrows his brow. “Perverts?”

                “Sick pigs,” she hikes down her shirt’s hem, shielding her bruises from the daylight. “Me and Reika only barely got away.”

                He manages to bring the swing to a stop. With a giggle, he jumps off at the last moment, falling forward onto the ground. He feels pain but it isn’t terrible. He’ll live. He looks up at Akira and puts his chin in his hand.

                “How old are you?”

                “Huh?”

                He repeats himself.

                “Nine,” says Akira and then, “What about you?”

                Sho counts each year off on his fingers until only four are tucked into his palm. Akira tilts her head to the side, sending locks of her hair to the side.

                “I’m only seven,” he says. She takes his hand in hers, lifting another one of his fingers so that three are tucked in.

                “That’s better,” she murmurs under her breath.

                “Why are you here?” Sho asks.

                Akira looks away. “My Psycho-pass.”

                “Me too!”

                Misaki begins waving her arms over her head and when Sho strains to hear the words ‘Come back!’ are made loud and clear. He scrambles onto his feet. Akira doesn’t move, much less say another word to him when Sho rushes back to Misaki. He wonders if he’ll ever see Akira again. She was okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Any reviews, thoughts, comments, and the like are very appreciated.


	3. Feel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You can always find a spare for any replacement."

3\. Feel

There is no change in Sho’s Psycho-Pass for the next week and for the next week he remains in what Misaki tells him is the White Room. The Room where Sho will be housed until Sybil deems him mentally stable. He doesn’t quite understand. After all, his Psycho-Pass is fine. Completely and totally unchanged and unharmed. There is no distorted hue. Just the clearest shade of white. But he remains in the White Room with Misaki. The first few days were spent behind the couch, hiding, counting the number of times Misaki’s nails rapped against the keyboard; the number of breaths they both took; the amount of tiles that spanned throughout the room. It wasn’t until his fourth day at the Centre that Misaki took him to the Baths where she proceeded to strip him down and clean every inch of his pale skin. She never looked at him. Looked past him, really. But Sho didn’t care. Mommy never bothered to clean him, always told him that it was a waste of water whenever she took her medicine.   
Misaki was kind to Sho in ways others had never been. She gave him fresh, white pajamas and sat with him on the futon that was set up in the corner of the White Room. Sho laid down on it and Misaki had brushed his hair out of his face and sung soft songs to him until finally he fell asleep. The lullaby resonates through his dreams, everlasting.   
“This child continues to cry and is mean to me.  
I get thinner because the baby cries all day”  
Misaki sang and for how long exactly, Sho will never know.   
The days in the White Room grow fleeting after that. Sho and Misaki sit on the sofa and she teaches him how to read, explaining to him how to decipher the Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji that he comes across. Sho slowly begins to understand and he will grow thankful for Misaki’s presence. He just doesn’t know that yet either.  
“You should smile more, Misaki-san,” Sho tells her today over breakfast when Misaki places a plate of Tamagoyaki in front of him. She’s cooked it herself.   
“I smile,” she says.  
“But more.”  
“Eat, Shogo,” she smiles.  
“Itadakimasu!” Sho bows his head and begins scarfing down his breakfast, ravenous and uncaring as he does his best to pry apart his breakfast with both chopsticks. Misaki looks sad. Sho recognizes it immediately, the sorrow in her eyes. He wonders if it lingers in his as well. Why is Misaki so sad? It is a mystery he is more than willing to solve.  
“We should go to the Interaction Hall today,” food flies from his mouth. “Really! Don’t you think so too Misaki-san? We could play and talk and that’d be so fun!”  
The sadness in Misaki’s eyes are instantly replaced by something else. She takes her lower lip between her teeth and shakes her head slowly. The gesture disheartens Sho but he doesn’t voice it. He forces a smile and nods at her.  
“Never mind then. We can always go tomorrow,” he hopes that the hurt is hidden from his voice.  
She moves to stand behind him, ruffling his hair. Strands the color of salt fall into Sho’s eyes and he swats at her hands. “We can go today, Shogo. But I don’t know if it’s a good idea for your Psycho-Pass. You’re showing great signs of recovery and the last thing we want to do is ruin that. Right?”   
“Yes?”  
“I don’t believe it’s in your best interest to go to the Interaction Hall today.”  
“But if I want to go I can?”  
“Yes…”  
“Then I wanna go! Please Misaki-san!” When Sho looks at her all Misaki can see is the universe. A thousand galaxies full of stars staring back at her. Every possible hope and ounce of innocence in the world all remain in Sho’s eyes. Nobody can say no to that.  
Slowly, Misaki nods. 

 

That day there is no sunlight in the Interaction Hall. The fact surprises Sho, shocks him to his very core. He has forgotten that there are hours of night. He doesn’t understand. He just had breakfast. He just woke up. How can it be night?   
Night.  
With the word come the memories of red.  
Spattered on the walls…  
The glint of a razorblade…  
Mommy’s cruel smile.  
Misaki’s warm hand on his lower back pushes him forward, toward the set of benches. She takes a seat, reaching into her blazer pocket and removing a small tablet no bigger than the size of her palm. She runs her fingers along the screen until a holo pops up. She begins tapping away at the screen in front of her.  
“Go play,” she looks up at him. Her eyes scream a silent ‘you wanted this.’  
Sho begins making his way from the bench and toward the swings. Seated at one is a girl, hair tied up over her head, wearing white pajamas. He recognizes her in an instant. Akira turns her heavy gaze toward him and her eyes narrow. Excitement blooms in his chest at the sight of her. He runs again, runs to the swings and dives into the seat next to hers. He grins at her. She stares in the opposite direction.  
“You’re annoying,” Akira says.  
“You aren’t very nice.”  
“I don’t need to be nice to you. I don’t need to be nice to anybody.”  
“Is your Psycho-Pass still clouded?”   
“A little,” Akira shrugs.  
“How much is a little?”  
She holds up one finger.  
“Your Psycho-Pass is at one?!” He all but screams and Akira lunges forward. Her hand wraps around his mouth. He tries to speak but his lips brush against soft skin that taste like salt and smell like sweat. She glares at him.  
“One-hundred,” she corrects him in a whisper.  
He nods.  
“This is the lowest that it’s been in a long time. And just talking to you is raising it.” She takes a step back from him, wiping her hand off on the front of her shirt.  
“I’m sorry,” he says.  
“There’s nothing either of us can do about it. We’re just kids right?” she sounds so much older than he is, than she is. He recognizes that warble in her voice and the pained sound that forms somewhere beneath. Akira unties her hair, sending strands cascading down her shoulders. “I want to be free of this place. Where I can breathe. Where I can be free. You could go with me if you’d like. I don’t think that anybody would mind. Then we could both be free. Wouldn’t you like that?”  
Sho’s brows knit together. “What? That’s impossible.”  
“No. There are only two ways people get free: they fight for it or they die and find it. I would like to at least breathe in a gasp of freedom before I die. Wouldn’t you prefer that too, Sho?” she asks.  
“Sure?”  
“You aren’t great for conversation. But I like you. And your hair. And your eyes. I feel like we’re going to do great things with each other, Shogo. Do you wanna make a pact?”  
“A pact?”  
“Yeah, it’s this thing where we make a promise. A vow. And neither one of us never, ever, ever breaks that vow.” Her eyes widen with every iteration of the word ‘ever.’  
Sho nods slowly. “Okay. Fine. Let’s make a pact.”  
Akira sticks out her pinky finger to him and slowly, Sho wraps his finger around hers. She shuts her eyes and murmurs softly, “One day we will find freedom. Together.”  
And Sho couldn’t describe it but in that moment everything changed. There aren’t any further hatred. As far as Akira and Sho were concerned, they were equals. Friends. Certainly no force on this world would ever undo that. All Misaki could do was watch and hope that there could be an exception

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Any reviews, thoughts, comments, and the like are very appreciated.

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued...
> 
> Next Chapter: Steps


End file.
